


in the depths underwater

by orphan_account



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Bullying, Childhood Friends, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Nightmares, Sylvain Week 2020, ooc? maybe? idk, the well incident..., vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:35:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24592414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Sylvain is pulled to the depths underwater and in his final moments, he recounts unwanted memories.(Written for Sylvain Week 2020- Day 7:Dreams(or Nightmares))
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Kudos: 45





	in the depths underwater

**Author's Note:**

> written before i finished azure moon lol.  
> and many apologies in advance, i haven't written in a looong while.

“I hate you so much, you know that?” Miklan hollers down at him. The hostile words echoing around Sylvain as he recovers from the fall down the well. Miklan had tricked him. He told Sylvain earlier to follow him as he wanted to show him an amazing discovery he found at the bottom of the well. The fool that Sylvain was, followed him in genuine curiosity. Only for Miklan to push him down the well when he took a glimpse over the wall.

What a bastard.

Maybe, deep down somewhere in his heart, Sylvain knew beforehand of the betrayal and allowed Miklan to push him down. Maybe, he had wanted to give Miklan some satisfaction. It was the least he could do for stealing the Gautier inheritance from him.

“You and your crest. The damn crest that ruined my life!” Miklan proceeds to angrily yell at him. “It could’ve been all mine! The Lance. The fortune. The power! All of it, Sylvain.”

Sylvain stays silent, ignoring the pain and aches he felt over his body. He looks up at Miklan and lets him continue to spew hate at him. A part of Sylvain feels empathetic towards him. Apologetic even, despite being the victim of Miklan’s constant harassment. The goddess blesses some, but not others. He didn’t ask to be born with a crest. He didn’t mean to take the life that was meant for Miklan away.

Miklan raises a bucket full of water, ready to throw it down on him. Sylvain defensively crosses his arms over his head to cover himself from what was about to rain down on him. What he wasn’t expecting was a vortex of water to be rushing down the well walls, engulfing Sylvain away with it on an unknown course. His body is pulled by the ferocity of the water. The weight of the water presses on him as he’s swept away into a dimension unknown to even the goddess herself.

Suddenly, the water stills around him.

“What the hell,” Sylvain trembles as the water calms. He looks around frantically, realizing he’s landed in the middle of the ocean. _W_ _here was Miklan? Wasn’t the well enclosed?_ He questions. Unless Miklan learned some sort of forbidden magic to transform a bucket of water into a vicious whirlpool and transport him to the middle of nowhere, Sylvain was stumped. Nothing could explain the situation he was in. No sign of life in sight; only endless water and a starless night sky surrounding him.

Then, the calmness ends. He hears it first. The rumbling sound of the water picking up and ferociously rolling at him in monstrous waves. He watches in horror as he fails to react quickly enough before it comes crashing heavily down on him. Sylvain flails his arms around, trying to grasp at anything, something to pull himself up on. But wave after wave pushes down on him, forcing him to drown further and further underwater. The constricting pressure becoming unbearable on his body. His lungs burning from the absence of oxygen as the water holds him down.

He stills his body, realizing his efforts are futile as he sinks, the energy drained from him.

“Shit,” He scoffs at the darkness enveloping him. His thoughts drifting away.

“Well, what a fitting end for a guy like me, huh?”

[ — ]

_Imperial Year 1169._

“The second Fraldarius son is always clinging onto Sylvain,” Margrave Gautier spats with disgust as he looks out the window, watching a young Felix and Sylvain running around in the estate’s garden, searching for bugs. The two boys were on a post dinner-time bug hunt competition, searching for the biggest critters they could find because everyone knows all the biggest crawlers start to come out in the evening. So far, Sylvain’s winning over Felix with two grasshoppers and a cricket caught.

Lady Gautier steps towards him and glances out the window with a puzzled look. “Now, you’re just overthinking this. The boys are being typical boys. And weren’t you the one who invited the Fraldarius over? Besides-”

“Only to talk about political matters and-” Margrave Gautier begins to mutter.

“Besides,” she sternly continues on. “I’m sure Lord Rodrigue has his plans with Felix as he does with Glenn. It’s only best for the them to be close to keep up the relation of our territories.”

Margrave Gautier jeers at the window in the direction of the two boys, “Sylvain will need to start focusing on his, _our_ , future soon. House Gautier’s successor lies in his hands.”  
  


Lady Gautier lays a reassuring hand on her husband’s shoulder, “You’re always saying that. Stop worrying. Sylvain is still young, but I am certain he wouldn’t turn away from his duty when he grows up.”

“Felix! Over here! Look I just found a beetle bigger than that other one.” Sylvain’s exclaim pulls his parents’ attention back to the two boys again. “IT’S SO GROSS,” he yells out with his hands cupped around the beetle. His face grimacing at the creepy crawler between his hands. Felix dashes over to look, only to trip over his own feet, knocking himself down onto the dirt. At the sound of Felix’s sudden cry, Sylvain turns around, drops the beetle back to the ground and runs towards him.  
  


“Are you hurt?” Sylvain helps Felix up. Immediately noticing Felix’s eyes brimmed with tears and he frantically searches for any signs of injury on Felix. And right as he notices the fresh bruise blooming on the boy’s knee, Felix bursts out crying.

“Ah, no don’t cry Felix,” Sylvain tries to comfort him. He places his hands on the side of Felix’s face to nudge him to look downward at his knee. “There’s no blood, see?” He gives Felix the biggest smile he can. With a hand on Felix’s cheek and the other tousling the raven hair, Sylvain says, “It’ll be okay,” he reaffirms to the crying boy as he clings onto Sylvain’s shirt.

Margrave Gautier is stunned in place with fury building up in him.

“I’m going to check up on them,” Lady Gautier says to him.

“He’s still far too clingy,” Margrave Gautier repeats to her with a frown deepening in his expression. His feet stay planted to the same spot while his wife could only sigh in disbelief at her husband’s lack of concern for the boys and walks out the door to attend to them.

Upon hearing the sound of the door, Sylvain turns his attention in the direction of the house, relieved seeing his mother coming to assist them. With the slight feeling of someone else eyeing him, he curiously turns his head a little further in the direction of the window. Sylvain meets his father’s face distorted in frustration, eyes becoming daggers, stabbing into his own. The hand in Felix’s hair simultaneously drops with his heart at the sharp pain etching through his body. At the time, he didn’t know why he was the target of his father’s anger. It was the anger he’s seen directed at Miklan in the past, but Sylvain was long told to ignore his older brother. Growing up he was constantly praised and spoiled by his parents, he didn’t want to be treated in the same way and his little heart broke at the thought. It was never his intention to disappoint others.

His mother approaches to check-up on Felix and notices Sylvain’s frightened expression.

“Sylvain, sweetie. What’s wrong? Are you hurt as well?” She asks.

Sylvain turns to her and shakes his head, afraid to say anything. Physically he was unhurt but-

“No, it’s nothing mother,” he mutters, ignoring the stab at his heart.

[ — ]

Sylvain continues to sink lower and lower into the depths of the water. The water grows colder and he feels the chill pierce straight into his bones. As relentless as earth’s gravity is, the force pulls him down gently. Opposite to the fear and heaviness he felt earlier, Sylvain ironically has a sense of ease, despite how he’ll be meeting his end in the matter of seconds. _It’s relaxing_ , he thinks, to be free, to have his burdens lifted from his shoulders.

However, ever so impossibly, a furious Margrave Gautier appears before him, wearing a wicked smile. Sylvain jolts, facing one of his biggest nightmares.

“Father?” Sylvain hastily says, his heart thumping heavily.

“How dare you, Sylvain?” Margrave Gautier lashes out.

_No_. Sylvain trembles slightly.

His father wasn’t the one he wanted to think of before his death.

The anger his father shows is one he has seen throughout his years growing up. Undoubtedly, at its worst when he opened up to his father about his relationship with Felix. The person who Sylvain loves. A relationship, a bond Sylvain wanted to last for a lifetime.

Felix.

If he had the choice, the last person he wanted to see was Felix.

[ — ]

_Imperial Year 1186_.

“Sylvain Jose Gautier, I ask for you to repeat what you had just said.” Margrave Gautier commands sternly.

Sylvain is standing across his father’s desk in the estate’s office. He winces at his father’s unforgiving tone as he forces himself to stand up straighter to the anger that was rising higher and higher from his father’s orotund voice. A voice he has feared and succumbed himself to growing up. The voice he constantly was nodding away, begrudgingly accepting his father’s wills and wishes for House Gautier, the life path his father demanded for him to follow, but never in his heart has he ever agreed to what he wanted.

The goading voice, the menacing expression, sends chills down his spine. But Sylvain isn’t going to let his father intimidate him from saying the words that falls off his tongue next. He could try to run away and learn to accept what his father wanted, but no, not when the person involved meant more than the world to him.

“I’m in love with Felix.”

Felix wasn’t a fling. Not a random dating escapade he used to have.

“Do you have any idea on what _nonsense_ you are saying, Sylvain?” Margrave Gautier barks back.

He does. Except it wasn’t nonsense. Sylvain may had done numerous questionable actions in the past, many certainly he was reprimanded for, but he knows his head is screwed on right at the moment.

“Father,” Sylvain repeats himself, voice steady. “I’m in love with Felix.”

His amber eyes meets his father’s eyes, burning with a fiery rage. It’s the same eyes he saw often as a child. The expression he only saw when he was around Felix. Never around his other childhood friends, Ingrid or Dimitri. A trend he noticed in the years of growing up. The same frustration was reflected onto the frown intensifying beneath on his father’s face. It pierces through Sylvain’s heart once again as it had many times in the past. It continues to hurt to disappoint those around him, but it was time for him to decide his own purpose.

“He is the one I want to be with for the rest of my life,” Sylvain draws in a breath and repeats,

“I love him.”

Margrave Gautier slams his hands on the desk. His face infuriated at House Gautier’s hope and future decimating in front of him. Sylvain can only scoff. It’s sickening. The control the crests has on people is truly frightening, causing narrow-mindedness and prejudiced perspectives throughout Fodlan. He’s witnessed the sorrow and the burdens both crest bearers and those crestless had faced. And he despised it. Himself included as he’s reminded of all the masks he’s worn in front of others to please them. In front of those who only used him for his name. For the social status. For his crest. It all wasn’t real.

Sylvain looks at his father. He sees the fury seeping into his father’s face, growing darker and uneasy all together. The rage fueled by the illusion of House Gautier’s perfect future, all shattering to broken pieces in front of him. Margrave Gautier opens his mouth and Sylvain was prepared for the venom about to be spewed at him-

[ — ]

“Sylvain!?” A deep voice calls out.

Sylvain’s eyes widen and he returns to the depths of the ocean.

“Sylvain!?” The worried voice calls out once more.

He can recognize the voice anywhere. The voice he grew up with. The same voice that cried dishearteningly to him when he fought with his older brother when they were younger. The same voice that scolded him for skipping out on training at the academy. The same voice that yelled out in fear as he took a blow for him during the war. The same voice that sobbed out, cradling him in his arms waiting for help to hurry to them, afraid to lose Sylvain there and then.

It’s the same voice that promised to be together with him until their deaths.

Against the burn in his lungs, he takes a final breath. The last breath he hopes will carry him to his lifeline even as the waves above him endlessly storms on. Sylvain moves his arms, attempting to push through the water and swim in the direction of the voice.

The voice of his love.

Felix’s voice.

[ — ]

“Sylvain?!”

Sylvain jerks awake. His heart thudding heavily against his chest as he wearily blinks away the darkness to meet the sight of Felix hovering over him. The moonlight illuminating the concern in copper eyes. He was in the bedroom, laying on their shared bed. The ocean was gone. The chilling cold replaced by a soothing breeze from an open window. His father, an illusion his mind created, was nowhere to be seen. Sylvain loosens his hold on the bed sheets he’s been unconsciously gripping to during the night. His chest heaving as he calms his mind and body.

“Take a deep breath,” Felix whispers. “Slowly breath in... and out.”

Sylvain follows, a breath in and out slowly, feeling his heartbeat settle back into its normal pace. His mind takes a moment longer to register his senses returning, pulling him fully back into reality.

“A nightmare?” Felix’s face scrunches in worry, hands on the side of Sylvain’s face.

Nightmares Sylvain was used to having. The nightmares which started during his childhood. The same ones he tried hard to bottle up and keep locked away in the back of his mind throughout his academy years. The same bottle that later overflows from all the agony and despair he experienced during the war. It left a mess in him, even after being named the next Margrave of House Gautier, taking over his father’s position. But he’s overcoming it. One day at a time in Fodlan’s aftermath. He’s forging the openhearted society he hopes to see between commoners and nobles, crest and no crest, treating everyone with the fairness and kindness they all deserved.

But even to this day, acceptance falters and the lingering past slips through to haunt his mind.

“Felix, I-I saw Miklan. My father. And I was dy-” Sylvain stammers, only to be silenced by Felix’s fingers against his lips.

Felix shakes his head and brings a hand to caress Sylvain’s cheek. “Don’t force yourself, Sylvain. It’s okay if you’re not ready to talk about it right now.” He reassures him, familiar with Sylvain’s pain and nightmares all too well.

Sylvain feels a wave of relief through his body. He brings an arm up to pull Felix down towards him and runs his fingers through the dark locks, hands tracing down Felix’s face, cupping his chin with a thumb brushing over his lips. His other hand takes a hold of Felix’s, giving his hand a gentle squeeze and slackening the hold once he acknowledges the warmth from his hand.

He was real. What he was experiencing was real. None of it was a dream. Felix is here besides him.

Felix.

The anchor which keeps him grounded, preventing him from getting swept away by the ocean waves of his highs and lows. His constant source of strength. Resilience. Empathy. Passion. Throughout his life.

Sylvain slowly lets out a breath and whispers,

“Felix, thank you.”

Felix’s lips curls up into a small smile as he nudges himself to Sylvain’s side, head and arm resting on his chest as if keeping him in place. Holding him down to the real world. Sylvain closes his eyes, letting himself ease back into sleep, comfortably to the warmth radiating from Felix as he holds him beside him.

_I love you_.

**Author's Note:**

> a part 2 was planned for the dream aspect, but inspiration could not be found in time i'm sorry OTL and also, i could not figure out how address sylvain's mother. please do let me know lol...
> 
> feel free to scream about sylvix w/ me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/yuuhsin)!


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